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Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

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Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#291

Post by giantg2 »

flatline wrote: post #279
giantg2 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm asking what would be different if you had to make a basic graphic based on nutritional science vs the My Plate graphic.

Dairy is completely unnecessary, for one. Its prominence on the plate makes everything else immediately suspect. There are probably some axes along which a glass of milk or cup of (unsweetened) yogurt is one reasonable option but that's not what is being promoted here.

I see it as more of a limit than a requirement. After all, you can technically satisfy your dietary needs with vegetables and eliminate fruits. But we aren't talking about technicalities and edge cases, rather what a balanced diet might consist of. For many people that does include dairy and fruits, even if neither are completely necessary.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#292

Post by ptaffs »

rendaw wrote: post #12

When this news first came out it was mind blowing, but at the same time I don't entirely get it. So the money quote seems to be: > The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats. They paid a total of 2 people $50,000 (edit: in 2016 dollars). That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nu…

Good comment. Industry influencing research is nothing new (Global Warming, Oxycodone), and the dollar amount is small but it really doesn't take a lot of money to influence anyone. This case was interesting because they diverted attention to another contributor and influenced public policy against savory snacks; I remember the public health campaign against habitual daily consumption chips/crisps, without equally addressing chocolate bars: https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/a-pac... And I'd also comment the ludicrous abstract comparison of drinking oil in a year. I wouldn't want to eat a football field of raw potato either. I do wonder how/why the Savory Snack industry didn't fire back, and why don't we have anything better than: are they both equally bad or is fat or salt worse.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#293

Post by overgard »

llm_nerd wrote: post #142
Aurornis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re exactly right: This one incident did not shape the entire body of scientific research. There is a common trick used in contrarian argumentation where a single flaw is used to “debunk” an entire side of the debate. The next step, often implied rather than explicit, is to push the reader into assuming that the opposite position must therefore be the correct one. They don’t want you to apply the same level of rig…

> The next step, often implied rather than explicit, is to push the reader into assuming that the opposite position must therefore be the correct one. See this in the constant "the MSM is imperfect, that's why I trust Joe Rogan or some random `citizen-journalist' on Twitter" nonsense. It's how everything has gotten very stupid very quickly. People note that medical science has changed course on something, therefore t…

> Positively no one is saying to replace saturated fats with sugar.

That has been kind of a consequence of that though. Low-fat foods tend to taste pretty bland, so sugar is added instead to improve flavor.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#294

Post by overgard »

rendaw wrote: post #69
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could buy a house and a 69 Charger for $25K in the 60's with a tidy sum left over.

$50k in 2016 dollars.

$25,000 in 1969 has the same buying power as approximately $220,000 to $226,000 today

In terms of 2016, from gemini:

> In 2016, $25,000 from 1969 was worth approximately $163,490.

> Based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), $1 in 1969 had the same purchasing power as $6.54 in 2016. This represents a total inflation increase of roughly 554% over that 47-year period

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#296

Post by uniqueuid »

throwway120385 wrote: post #145
uniqueuid wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really good to ask these questions. I'm not a medial researcher, but my impression is that many fields find it difficult to produce the robust high-level risk comparisons that you ask about. I.e. if you're looking at blood fats, even there you'll find many complicated contextual factors (age, sex, ethnicity, type of lipids i.e. LDL or lp(a) or ...?). The same might be the case for sugar. So it's not really easy/…

But is it the actual sugar, or the habits surrounding consumption of the beverage?

That's pretty easy.

If you have a randomized controlled trial, the sugar dose is varied and other confounding variables are controlled by randomization. So you measure the causal impact of sugar only. There are studies showing that.

With observational studies, if you have a dose-dependent effect, then that's good evidence (although not completely conclusive) of a causal relationship. This is what many studies do.

If you have a meta analysis covering many primary studies, and if those vary a lot of context (i.e. countries, year, composition of the population), and you still get a consistent effect, then that's another piece of support for a causal relationship.

The few studies that I've looked at seem to show a pretty robust picture of sugar being a cause, but there might be selection bias - i.e. we'd need an umbrella / meta meta study (which ideally accounts for publication bias) to get the best estimate possible.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#297

Post by littlestymaar »

ecshafer wrote: post #67
ok123456 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

take me back

[flagged]

The good standard didn't even last half a century before collapsing.

Gold is way too inelastic to work as a basis for currency in an industrial economy.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#298

Post by guelo »

zug_zug wrote: post #266
rendaw wrote: post #12

When this news first came out it was mind blowing, but at the same time I don't entirely get it. So the money quote seems to be: > The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats. They paid a total of 2 people $50,000 (edit: in 2016 dollars). That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nu…

This is just the time that we caught. Who knows how many more times it happened and wasn't caught? > I guess the thing that I most don't get is it's now been 10 years since then, and I haven't seen any news about the link between sugar and CVD. Perhaps this is more evidence that not everybody has been caught? It's not like this is some isolated thing, like it's a documented fact that the food pyramid was shaped the w…

You're arguing for a pattern based on 1 data point.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#299

Post by pydry »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #205
pseidemann wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such "science" should be illegal.

If propaganda was illegal, who would decide what was propaganda and what was simply argumentation made from positions of relative ignorance?

The courts could easily decide whether a message has been paid for or not.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#300

Post by manmal »

Aurornis wrote: post #52
rendaw wrote: post #12

When this news first came out it was mind blowing, but at the same time I don't entirely get it. So the money quote seems to be: > The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats. They paid a total of 2 people $50,000 (edit: in 2016 dollars). That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nu…

You’re exactly right: This one incident did not shape the entire body of scientific research. There is a common trick used in contrarian argumentation where a single flaw is used to “debunk” an entire side of the debate. The next step, often implied rather than explicit, is to push the reader into assuming that the opposite position must therefore be the correct one. They don’t want you to apply the same level of rig…

[flagged]
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